Marine Electronics

Lighthouse R&D Retrofits Cabled Ocean Observatory Off Oman
Lighthouse R&D Enterprises Inc. (Houston, Texas) recently announced that it has finished a complete retrofit of the first Lighthouse Ocean Research Initiative (LORI I) system, which measures current velocities, oceanic physical properties and dissolved oxygen of the seawater off the coast of Oman. In place since 2005, it is connected to a shore facility via fiber optic cable, allowing full duplex capability.

Existing current meters and sensors were replaced with instruments and sensors reconfigured for optimum performance and data quality, the company said. Additional cathodic protection and new anti-biofouling measures will improve on the previous configuration of the system by decreasing the need to return to the site for maintenance, Lighthouse R&D continued.

"This retrofit capitalizes on our collective research experience and developmental efforts accumulated during the five years that we have operated and maintained the LORI I system," said Douglas Potter, project manager with Lighthouse.

During the expedition, the company also retrofitted the Lighthouse Seismic Tsunami Early Warning System with additional cathodic protection in order to protect the instruments from corrosion. The system measures seismic activity and overlying water pressure in real time in order to provide an early warning of approaching tsunamis.
For more information, visit www.lighthousehouston.com.

MSI Completes Long-Term Current Measurement Contract
Cape Town, South Africa-based Metocean Services International (Pty) Ltd. (MSI) announced in November that it has successfully completed a one-year current measurement program at nine locations in the far north of Norway.

The Norwegian Oil Industry Association (OLF) initiated this study to increase its understanding and knowledge on metocean data in the Lofoten-Vesterålen area in the county of Nordland. The observations will also be shared with the Norwegian government's program to survey the nation's coastal and sea regions, named MAREANO. Some rigs with current profilers are already in place in the area, and OLF extended the programs with additional moorings.

For this program, MSI deployed nine separate moorings, each fitted with a current profiler (frequency depending on water depth) and conductivity, temperature, depth logger. The moorings were serviced at intervals of approximately three months using vessels chartered by MSI.

The project was mobilized from Sandnessjøen, Norway, and moorings were deployed in positions designated as having the least conflict with fisheries. The positions were published in Notices to Mariners and information was given to the Norwegian Fishermen's Association, the Norwegian Coastal Administration and to the coast guard.

Only one mooring was lost over the course of the program, resulting in a total successful data collection of 35 out of 36 deployments.
For more information, visit www.metoceanservices.com.

AXYS Buoy Installed in the Strait of Gibraltar
To provide wave data to local maritime stakeholders, the Spanish government has been employing wave buoys near the ports of Tarifa and Algeciras in the Strait of Gibraltar for several years. While data from these buoys are useful, the relatively small size of the buoys combined with a very high volume of vessel traffic resulted in occasional impacts and loss of data.

To overcome this, Puertos del Estado and the Port Authority of the Bay of Algeciras recently added an AXYS (Sidney, Canada) WatchKeeper™ metocean buoy, a taller and more visible platform with substantially more capabilities, AXYS said.

Sidmar (Benissa, Spain), AXYS's exclusive agent in Spain, deployed the buoy at the mouth of the Port of Algeciras on November 11. A TRIAXYS™ buoy was also redeployed near Tarifa, on the western side of the strait, during the same trip.

The 1.75-meter-tall WatchKeeper measures waves, currents, winds and air pressure, along with a variety of other parameters, and then sends its data to shore each hour for uploading to the Puertos del Estado website for near-real-time display.

The WatchKeeper is outfitted with an automatic identification system (AIS) aid-to-navigation transponder that sends a position and met hydro message to AIS-equipped transiting vessels and land stations. These outgoing messages not only tell vessel operators the location of the buoy platform, but also inform them of local meteorological conditions, allowing operators to make more informed decisions, such as whether to continue an approach or to hold position until the weather improves, AXYS said.
For more information, visit www.axystechnologies.com.

BorWin1, the world's first high-voltage direct current (HVDC) connector for offshore wind farms, is situated 120 kilometers off the coast of Germany, and OMM's role was to install the two one-kilometer HVAC cables (208 millimeters outside diameter) between the principal platforms at a water depth of approximately 40 meters.

From the BorWin alpha platform, the DC-export cables run to the Island of Norderney and onward to Diele, Germany, where power will enter the German grid.

All operations were conducted between late August and early November from the MV Seabed Worker, a state-of-the-art, multipurpose dynamic positioning Class 2 vessel.

The scope of work included the inspection of the J-tubes, mudline dredging, visual route surveys, prelay grapnel runs and full preparatory topside works on both platforms for the J-tube pull-in operations. This was followed by cable installation with associated pull-ins, trenching and post-trench depth-of-burial surveys.

Both cables were installed and buried to protected depth to the satisfaction of TenneT, with a 1.5-meter burial criteria and three trenching passes.
For more information, visit www.offshoremm.com.

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